Timeline
The following is a timeline for The Walking Dead by EDStudios ''universe, explaining what happened each day, week, month, and year. Divergence The series takes place in a semi-fictionalized and exaggerated world that diverged from reality during the American Civil War, with far more advanced technology being available before the outbreak, from exo suits, the Massive Military Land Vehicle, readily available nuclear reactors, advanced Artificial Intelligence and advanced medications. Corporations are also shown to be even more powerful, with greater influence in American politics and even in the military. For example, the Soda-Cola Company, which manufactured SodaPOP!, sought to defeat their soft-drink beverage rivals by investing in chemical weapons research for the US government. As for the government themselves, they appear to have far looser morals and view the people of the Old World as their subjects, readily available to be experimented on. 19th Century * During the Civil War, divergence occurs. * An unnamed state is incorporated into the United States. * The first recorded case of the zombie pathogen is recorded; a village in Haiti is largely destroyed when the adults begin cannibalising the children in the town. The town is burned alongside the zombified inhabitants and the event falls into folklore. It is likely that those who burned the town were infected with the pathogen, only to eventually spread it across the world. 1890 * The city of Upswitch is settled. 1977 * '''June': SodaPOP! is founded in Pennsylvania and becomes the most popular soft drink on the east coast. 1983 * In the closing years of the Cold War and despite easing tensions with the USSR, the US government commissions the construction of approximately 80 subterranean fallout shelters dotted around the country, each able to house anywhere between 200-500 people. 1996 * 6th December: Harry Edwards, the future "Veteran of Pain and Suffering", is born. 1999 * Winter: federal funding is approved to finally begin construction on a series of fallout shelters. 2001 * Spring: James Cottingham, defending a friend, beats up and ends up killing a fellow pupil. 2003 * Winter: the United States government begins development of the Massive Military Land Vehicles for use in the battlegrounds of the Middle East. One of the MMLVs is nicknamed by the design team as the "Land Crawler" and construction begins. 2005 * A set of documents are leaked that seem to indicate the existence of a shadow government operating within the US government, consisting of several key members of the President's cabinet and high-ranking intelligence operatives. The documents also indicate that this organisation - titled "The Federates" within the leak - essentially strongarms the President and is the true power behind the United States Federal Government. The report also indicates that "the Federates" have been conducting secret chemical weapons research and social experiments on the American populace and perhaps over the whole world. The leak is quickly discovered before it reaches the general public, with the whistleblower completely disappearing and those who saw the leak being silenced. 2009 * A hospital in northern Delaware reports several citizens coming in coughing blood and, upon dying, coming back and biting people. The Federates - under the guise of the US government - shut down these reports as a conspiracy theory and sets up a research project into the pathogen. 2011 * April: Mark Watson and a group of friends - including a man he has a crush on - commit a robbery. Mark, convinced their guns are filled with blanks, accidentally shoots a man. His friends take the money and leave the scene, while Mark stays behind to try to resuscitate the man he shot. The man is reported dead when the police arrive and Mark is arrested. * Summer: the "Land Crawler" project runs out of funding during a government shutdown, resulting in what has been built being stored at Adams Air Force Base in Montana. 2012 * February 6: a convicted criminal is executed by lethal injection. However, the execution is staged and his body is taken by the government for use in the Lazarus Project. At some point afterwards, the pathogen in his brain is removed and his body is kept for future experimentation. The body is placed within a Gate somewhere in the central US and is kept comatose - but alive - by the automated facility. * February 24: the Lazarus Project reports to the government that the unknown pathogen has most likely infected everyone in the country, with a potential sudden epidemic expected within six months. * Season 1 begins * March 2: a group of kids from the UK arrive in the US and drive to the city of Upswitch as exchange students. This group would become the Clarkson Survivors. * March 11: Mark Watson is convicted of murder for his part in the bank robbery and is given a reduced sentence because of his age. * March 12: The Kickoff ** 'And So It Begins' ** 6:57 am: the government goes into shutdown, not expecting the magnitude of the epidemic. ** 7:00 am: the northeastern United States is largely destroyed by the zombie outbreak. The Federal Rescue Services shut off New England in an attempt to control the outbreak. ** 8:32 am: a state of emergency is declared as the adults across the country begin succumbing to the pathogen. ** 9:26 am: the outbreak hits the midwest. All adults in the region die and reanimate. A small group of kids from the UK are able to find shelter in a drama studio. ** 9:31 am: while being transported to prison, Mark is involved in a car accident. Mark passes out in the crash. ** 10: 50 am: the outbreak hits the west coast. Almost all the adult population of the country has died and reanimated at this point. ** 'A New Day' ** 16:15 am: Drew Stanton, Harold and William Carter, and Leyton Jones rescue Becky from her reanimated parents. Drew's brother, Connor, disappears. * March 13: the group emerges from the drama studio to find the school infested with zombies. * March 14: the date that SodaPOP! Diamond - secretly a Federate-backed chemical weapons project - was supposed to be released to the public. 2013 * 'A Long Road Ahead' * March 14: Jess Black gives birth to a son, later named Alex Junior, and dies soon after. She is buried in the park. * March 15: Alex Sutton is shot dead by James Cottingham. 2014 2018 * Season 6 begins 2022 2032 * Season 20 begins * Season 21 begins * September 8: Battle of Archangel ** Early morning: Shadowman and his team fire rockets at the Frontiersmen fuel supply. * September 10: Edwards, revealed to be alive after the events of the previous day, breaks out Drew and his support team. He is reunited with his family and reclaims his jacket. 2038 * Season 22 begins * June 2046 * August 11: Hope and Jacob Edwards are born to Dominic Edwards and Evie. 2062 * Edwards dies at his ranch at the age of 66. * Winter: the New Buckingham Corps conducts the first human trials of the Lazarus Virus. 2069 2107 * 'A New World': Part 3'' begins''' 2112 * March 11: the centennial of the New World 2116 * Eric Edwards is born: the third and last child and first son of Hope Edwards and Lucian. 2118 * 'The Walking Dead: 'Apocalypse' begins * The Walking Dead: 'Cataclysm' begins * June 19: the Great Collapse ** 10: 37 am: Thomas Trent and the Man in Black each turn their keys. The Man in Black gets up, severely injured, and thanks Thomas. He holds out his hand and says "shall we?" ** 10: 42 am: the Sierra Madre detonates, with the surrounding land torn apart by the cataclysmic explosion of the nuclear reserve beneath the base. The signal is sent to the silos to launch. ** The bombs and missiles fly. The massive stockpile of nuclear bombs is released into the skies and rain down across the New World. In just 30 minutes, the landscape is burned in nuclear fire and the air thickened by radioactive soot. The Gates are sealed, protecting those chosen as strong by the Cult. ** 11:35 am: Reno is revealed to be alive and crawls out from the rubble of the building. Beaten and bruised, he crawls through the mud up to the ridge. The sight that meets his eyes - of a landscape burned by the flames of the nukes and a sky blackened by soot - shocks him. Sure his friends are dead, he picks up his bow and heads off for the wilderness to escape the incoming radiation. ** 11:47 am: Mycroft, Sandra, George, and the other surviving members of Mycroft's team watch as the clouds clear from the Sierra Madre. The residents of the bunker beckon them to enter. Sarah pulls Mycroft away from the ridge as the group make their way into the bunker. The door seals. * June 21: their mission complete, the surviving members of the Cult of the Man in Black drift into the wilderness. The organisation is never heard from again. * July: a month after the Great Collapse, a deadly black rain begins to fall which lasts for weeks. * At some point before the end of the year, Thomas Trent wakes up within the Man in Black's bunker, with most of his memories gone due to extreme injury. The Man in Black takes advantage and christens him "Odysseus". 2136 * The doors of Gate 84 open. The residents begin colonising the area outside the entrance, eventually christening the settlement Mariposa, Spanish for "butterfly". 2141 2143 * The Walking Dead: 'Next World' begins 2146 * The Relic awakens beneath an unidentified Gate and emerges from the facility. Upon seeing the Next World, he smiles and heads out into the wilderness to start a new journey. 2147 * SURGE: The New Dawn begins 2152 * Phase 5 begins Trivia * Between the start of the series and the end of the Battle of Archangel, it has been twenty years. ** Furthermore, at the start of the 'A Certain Doom' arc, it has been 28 years. ** At the start of the New Age Extension, it has been 50 years since the outbreak. Category:Themes